Contributors Network Editor at Dallas Morning News, former Editor-in-Chief of American Way magazine. Author of Standing Eight and Damned To Eternity.

2012

January 2012Editor’s Note: It’s All Right
WHEN I WAS 21, I wrote the perfect love song. It was conceived on a moonlit, enchanted evening in Hollywood, and the proverbial stars were aligned for writing a hit. My roommates were out; a breeze blew in through my screen door and the lights of downtown L.A. twinkled in the distance. My girl was 1,800 miles away at her St. Louis home, and I had that longing feeling in my belly. Taken together, this was an absolutely perfect songwriting atmosphere.[…]

January 2012Editor’s Note: Ice Ice Baby
I CAN SEE you now, all cozy in your seat, snuggled up with a good e-book . Ah, those humming jet engines sure are soothing. Or, if you’re like me, you’ve got your Bose QuietComfort Noise Cancelling headphones on, making those Vanilla Ice tracks sound crisp and clear and reducing those already-quiet jet engines to just the faintest background hum. Accentuating your comfortable surroundings is that jaw-clenching chill you knocked off your body once the flight attendant closed the cabin door.[…]

February 2012 Editor’s Note: House of Lord, Building of Freedom
At the Corner of Lafayette Avenue and South Oxford Street stands a bastion of hope and liberty. The Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church has long been the open eye keeping watch over a changing neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y. Indeed, Fort Greene is a societal history book, one whose prologue begins before our country was born — and one whose epilogue will never be written.[…]

February 2012Editor’s Note: Good Advice
Moms and Dads pay close attention to this column. I’m going to pass on some sage advice that was passed on to me and that one day, our children — yours and mine — will pass on as well. Mind you, this advice is one part Griswold-ish Walley World, one part marriage counseling. […]

March 2012Editor’s Note: Lady in the White Dress
THE CONVERSATIONS GOING on around us were beyond ridiculous. Justin and I acted like we were talking to each other, but we were actually eavesdropping on all the people knotted up in different corners of the reception.[…]

March 2012Editor’s Note: Life is a Long Song
ON MY WAY to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, a song came on the radio that made me think about my life, their lives and how our lives would intertwine when this week was over. I reflected on the lyrics and on what lay ahead, figuratively and literally. This was not an ordinary flight.[…]

April 2012Editor’s Note: Time There Was
I can remember scenes from 15 years ago better than I can remember last Monday. I can remember happy times: I remember with fondness when my parents were married and my family was still a nuclear family; when my grandparents were alive; my old college room; my old car; how good it felt when my fraternity[…]

April 2012Editor’s Note: Prosperity on the Pampas
THERE’S SOMETHING OVERTLY romantic about boarding a gigantic wide-body jet, taking off and leveling out seven miles above the Earth, and peering out the window as the pilot gradually turns the nose and points it straight south. Twelve hours later, you’re in a land unlike any[…]

May 2012Editor’s Note: American Sole
MY FEET ARE killing me. I’ve been on them most of the day, pounding the rural pavement of Lake Charles, La., and then testing the strength and durability of my arches over countless hours at the craps table. My pain is compounded by the fact that many people keep stepping[…]

June 2012Editor’s Note: Job Well Done
RECENTLY PETER RODWAY wrote in requesting some old copies of American Way. Not an unusual request per se, as we’re happy to oblige readers with extra copies when we have them. What was unusual about Peter’s request was the reason he wanted the magazines:[…]

June 2012Editor’s Note: Forward to the Past
I THOUGHT BY now things would be different. Mind you, I’m not complaining. No, I’m perfectly content with the current state of affairs. I don’t mind in the least driving around town with the family in our Nissan Pathfinder (not so much in the Subaru, though). I still like dusting off the old Corey O’Brien deck, manufactured[…]

July 2012Editor’s Note: A Dirty Job
I SWEAR I’M going to take this old piece of garbage and throw it off the roof. Yeah, I know, many of you who have met me on a plane know about my hate/hate relationship with my vacuum cleaner. And I used to swear that my vacuum and I would be together until my final days of living somewhere with four[…]

July 2012Editor’s Note: Listen Up, Children
January 15, 2009, seems like forever ago, but in that issue, I wrote a column about my bucket list of concerts. One of the bands that I’d always wanted to see — though my parents wouldn’t let me go to a show — was Jane’s Addiction. Mom and Dad forbade it. Not because[…]

August 2012Editor’s Note: Walking Tall
THE OTHER DAY, I was at my friend Scott’s house and I saw something there that was decidedly un- Scott. Sitting on the hearth was a pair of genuine Army combat boots. Now Scott’s a patriot — of that I’m well aware — but other than sneakers and flip-flops, I didn’t think[…]

August 2012Cover Story: A RIVER’S GONNA FLOW ’CROSS THE LAND
Come along on a Twain-inspired, period-written journey on the mighty Mississippi River[…]

September 2012Editor’s Note: And Know They Love You
STILL IN SUMMER shock, my 6yearold is having a hard time waking up, readying herself in great haste and trudging to the bus stop. And I know with absolute certainty that this scene is playing out across the country as the 2012–2013 academic year gears up and routines are once more implemented.[…]

September 2012Editor’s Note: This Story Now Belongs to the Ages
TODAY WAS ONE of the greatest days of my life. It was like having the Super Bowl, the World Series, Christmas, Hanukkah, the Lower Oakland Roller Derby and my birthday all rolled into one. I’m sitting on an American Eagle flight from the Abraham Lincoln Capital Airport in Springfield, Ill., heading back to Dallas — below the MasonDixon Line — and back to the brutish realities that nonPh. D.s face daily.[…]

October 2012Editor’s Note: The Fighter
KIM SIMPLIS BARROW is my friend. She’s your friend, too, even though you’ve probably never met her. She’s a friend to the ideals of smart growth and fair housing; to education and the pursuit thereof; to all living creatures; to humanity. Throughout her life[…]

October 2012Editor’s Note: Isthmus of Panama
BRITISH ART HISTORIAN Hugh Honour wrote that entering Venice in any way other than by sea is like entering a palace through the back door. The reason being that the presentation and pomp of the Italian city — and of particular affection to Honour, the approach from the sea to the church of Santa Maria della Salute — is as much a part of the city culture as the canals are. […]

November 2012Editor’s Note: Art Lover
THOSE OF US who can’t so much as draw a stick figure are, perhaps, the best judges of art. That’s a strangely subjective statement about a strangely subjective profession: art critic. Yet the rationale is rather straightforward, being that if you can’t do what someone else can do, you can appreciate and feel affection for his or her talent.[…]

November 2012Editor’s Note: Here We Are
SOUNDS STRANGE but every once in a while I look around and ask myself, “What on earth am I doing here?” Odd question, especially because I’m the one who put myself there in the first place. I undoubtedly have a very good reason for being there — wherever “there” is.[…]

December 2012Editor’s Note: I’m a Goonie
RIGHT NOW AT this very moment, I’m in seat 13D en route to Las Vegas for a travel-journalism conference. Our 757 is flying over central New Mexico, and the patchwork of red earth and shadows from the clouds below forms what is seemingly a whole other mountain range.[…]

December 2012Editor’s Note: Road to Memory Lane
THERE’S A ROAD that wraps around a densely wooded thicket in the part of New York state between Pennsylvania and Connecticut. The name of it escapes me, but it’s a road I traveled many times over many years in my youth. It had its own heartbeat; its own persona.[…]